


Storm

by high_life



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Abigail very much exists, Consensual Sex, F/M, McFarlane ranch, Mutual Pining, One night in a storm, as vanilla as one time sex can get, lustful conclusions, of feelings and regrets, slightly canon divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 13:43:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18918190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/high_life/pseuds/high_life
Summary: “You ain’t like those menfolk out there,” Bonnie starts, flicks her eyes to the stables where her ranchers were busy cleaning up for the day. “They don’t trust a woman farther than they can throw her, least of all a woman in charge.”John makes a nose in his throat.“I’ve met some spirited women over the years,” he says then. And turns back to her with that same, intense kind of gaze. “Ain’t none quite like you, Miss MacFarlane.”





	Storm

“Beggin’ your pardon Miss MacFarlane, but can I talk to you for a minute?”

He stands there, like he always does, not daring to come onto the porch of her house or even inside the gate without permission granted. She thinks he’s curious; an outlaw, a man above and outside the system of rules, and yet he’s been nothing but polite. _Too_ polite, even. 

“What’s on your mind, Mister Marston,” she answers warmly. Offers a hand out to the other chair beside her. Laughs when he hesitates. “Well come on now, ain’t no time to be shy!”

John fiddles with his hat; like he isn’t sure if he should remove it or not before clunking his spurred boots up the steps of the old veranda, but then seeming to decide at the last minute to _tip_ it at her and then place it quickly in his lap.

Bonnie shakes her head with a smile.

“Ain’t you a curious fella,” she gestures to him. Waits for his usual sort of banter directed back — because that was half the fun with John Marston, she thinks. Their little _game_.

“No more curious than the next poor bastard,” and there it was, quicker than a whip snap and delivered with a chuckle that she’s growing to love a little too much.

Bonnie leans back against the warm wood of the chair; it’s a peaceful kind of afternoon, with heat hanging in the air and sun soaking the side of the ranch. She doesn’t know why, but it reminds her of her childhood. A kind of blanket of safety from the rest of the world. Like she could run through the fields out in the paddocks, chase the cows, thread daisies into her hair for hours. She’s _content._

“How you findin’ the boys?” Her hands find the cup of tea next to her, blowing the rising steam off. John settles into the chair more.

“Fine, ain’t too much to complain about,” he answers distractedly.

Bonnie raises an eyebrow.

“They ain’t givin’ you a hard time out there, are they?”

John laughs again.

“If they do, believe me you’ll know,” he shakes his head and the words register quickly with her. Bonnie drifts her eyes down to the gun holstered at his hips, and he’s quick to follow her line of sight. “Nothin’ like _that_ , I ain’t about to cause you trouble after everythin’ you done for me.”

There it was again; a man she’d found half dead at a notorious gang hideout, who’d told her he’d used to run with _Bill Williamson_ , who was a quicker shot than any farm hand she’d ever had — _including herself_ — and at every turn, John had reaffirmed to her that there was a heart of gold hiding under all that crust and dirt. She knows he’s got years behind him, a life of hardship that she can’t possibly compare to. That there were things you learnt when you were abandoned at a young age. Brought up to treat _murder_ as an everyday occurrence. But Bonnie is consistently surprised.

Maybe even admires him.

“Well, you been provin’ your worth tenfold Mister Marston,” she waves off his words because _Christ_ , she wasn’t about to let him in on how she really felt. There was no need for that. “And we sure do appreciate it.”

“Do _you_?” John comes back at her and his tone is suddenly and surprisingly _serious_ that Bonnie has to stop.

She lowers her tea. Let’s her eyes meet his for the first time that afternoon.

He’s looking at her intently, more intently than he’s let himself do so in the past few weeks on the ranch. There’s a glow in his look, and she’s not sure if it’s the way the sun is hitting the back of his hair or if she’s just seeing things or honestly, _really_ there’s something _there_. Either way, she’s not entirely ignorant. John Marston is a man with a certain charm to him, a charm that maybe most wouldn’t find particularly attractive but _she_ does, and she _has_ since the morning he’d finally woken up, gunshot wound still fresh. Bonnie holds her breath for a moment. And then glances away.

“Of course I do,” she says almost to herself and attempts to drown her words in her tea. Beside her John casts his own gaze out over the bustling ranch.

“You sure know how to run this place, Miss MacFarlane,” and he sounds hesitant again. “And I — _well_ , I admire that.”

Bonnie thinks of the last conversation they had on this porch. That he’d been serious, just like this, and had surprised her as much as before.

“Your wife is a lucky lady then,” she muses, hopes she doesn’t sound half as disappointed as she actually is.

John tips his head against the stream of sunlight.

“How so?”

With a clink of her teacup back onto the saucer, Bonnie finds its her turn to fidget. To feel a little unsure of the conversation, of why John is even here. If they were just talking in riddles and innuendos as usual, like John had all the time in the world to play her like a fiddle and not even take her to the concert.

“You ain’t like those menfolk out there,” Bonnie starts, flicks her eyes to the stables where her ranchers were busy cleaning up for the day. “They don’t trust a woman farther than they can throw her, least of all a woman in charge.”

John makes a nose in his throat.

“I’ve met some spirited women over the years,” he says then. And turns back to her with that same, intense kind of gaze. “Ain’t none quite like you, Miss MacFarlane.”

There’s so many things right on the tip of her tongue; she wants to plainly point out he’s a _married_ man, and that married men don’t go around saying silly things like that to unmarried women like herself, that he’s a right fool and a downright idiot for even suggesting the idea. But then Bonnie is so deeply flattered, so taken by his words that all she can do is gape like a goldfish. Watch as he places his hat back on his head with a tug, with hands on his knees, with steps across the porch that take him back into the afternoon sun.

 

 

* * *

  


 

It’s raining when Bonnie finishes up with her perimeter check later. They don’t get a lot of downpour out in the flats and the grass was beginning to look an awful shade of brown, so she’s grateful when she feels the sharp drops on her skin while heading back to the barn.

The sky rumbles above her.

With a sigh she places her rifle inside, nods politely to the farmhand taking shelter amongst the horses while cleaning up the last of the chores for the day. The air feels electric; like the earth craved the water, the animals too. She can see the cows happily trotting around, not too frightened yet by the low thunder. Bonnie rubs her arms. It felt _good_ to finally see the sky clouding over.

Outside, she watches as the general store lowers it’s lamps and the normally lit campfire fizzles out. The main house looks inviting as always; she’s sure her father is cooped up downstairs with a book, maybe even a little brandy on a night like this. But somehow, she doesn’t find her steps taking her towards it. Instead Bonnie focuses on the small shack with a horse braying by the hitching post.

 _John’s_ small shack.

She tells herself that the animal should be inside with impending weather like this, that she’s just doing her part to make sure no harm comes to the beautiful stallion — not when John had taken such care to break him in. Besides, she thinks, she’s already outside and her clothes are beginning to be damp. There was no point in asking John to get wet too. So she quickens her steps towards the small building. Makes to reach out for the reigns. And then Bonnie finds herself drawn in by the warm light flickering in the window, casting its occupant in a orange glow.

She stops. Lets the rain splash against her skin just a little more.

Peers inside.

John’s seated, hat discarded and holsters removed, with his gun between his hands and a rag slowing working, polishing the metal. She can’t quite see his face, nor the expression he was wearing, but she thinks he looks deep in concentration; like he was content for the evening to sit there. To lavish a little attention on what she imagines is his most prized possession at that precise moment in time. It wasn’t as if he’d had anything else on his person when she’d found him up at the fort — just the clothes on his back, and a single pistol.

Bonnie chews at her bottom lip.

There’s a moment then, where she finds herself glancing at the horse next to her, reigns just within her grasp, and then to the sky above. She mentally calculates how far away the storm must be; another roll of thunder and a good, solid couple of seconds before a weak flash of lightning tells her everything she needs to know. Gives her an _excuse_.

Boots take her up the little steps. And then she raps gently at the door with the back of her knuckles and a deep intake of breath.

Inside there’s a clink of metal and a scuff of spurs and the unmistakable thud of his shoes and she thinks she must have her ears trained, with the rain beginning to pick up in pace, but it doesn’t matter because John creaks the door open and stares at her.

“Miss MacFarlane?” He says. Furrows his eyebrows together and makes the scar on his nose crinkle up. Eyes flick to the darkening sky behind her. “Well _Christ_ — come inside and get outta that.”

Bonnie lets herself be pulled inside the small shack, door closed behind her, rain muffled by a gentle _pat pat pat_ against the windows. For a second John just looks at her; takes in the water clinging to her blonde hair and threatening to drip over her cheeks, her blouse flush against her chest, eyes unsure but yet somehow _firm_.

Firm with _what_ she’s not so sure herself.

“I was gonna get your horse,” she offers then. Like her words were just filling space.

“I can take care of it.”

John gaze seems glued to her and doesn’t follow when she chances a look out the window behind her.

“There’s a storm comin’,” she starts. Has the audacity to shrug like it wasn’t a fact and that she didn’t own the room they were both in, and that they never had any conversation about John’s other life, about the awful things he’d done and the family he already had, and that he wouldn’t be on her ranch forever and this — _all of this_ — was just some strange, weird interlude in her normally mundane life.

John is close to her; closer than he’s ever dared to hover, with Bonnie’s back nearly pressed up against the door and his body stripped down to the simple, white shirt and jeans she’s never seen him out of. There’s still a long stain across his middle. Bonnie hopes the stitches around his wound haven’t been bothering him.

“I’ll take him over to the stable,” John says then, and his voice is much quieter than before. “A little rain never bothered me.”

Thunder rolls deep in the clouds.

“Me neither.”

Bonnie tries to shrug again but the movement is caught, stopped straight in its tracks with a hand clasped to her shoulder and John’s mouth tilted towards hers.

She didn’t think it would be like this. He kisses her with the storm barrelling closer in the background, with gloves discarded so she can feel the warmth of his skin through her damp shirt, with a kind of practiced air that feels familiar and well-trodden all at the same time. John meets her with no urgency, but rather like he was making a matter-of-fact statement.

Bonnie pulls away. Let’s her eyes flick back and forth between his. Tries to find something behind it, behind the way he’s looking at her like he did on the porch.

“Well, what did you do that for?” She hears the edge to the words in her head but when she says them they sound much too _soft_.

A flash of dull lightning illuminates John from the window.

“Just looked like you needed it,” and there’s nothing misplaced in his tone, nothing that would make it sound like he was trying to be fresh or witty or funny with her. But like he was telling _himself_.

Bonnie’s hands find the wood of the door behind her, if only to keep her propped up, because she doesn’t find herself wanting to inch away from him. Not with the way she can smell a kind of rustic, spiced scent that tells her he’s had his clothes washed by someone on the ranch, that he’s bothered to clean himself up at some point.

“I ain’t sure I did,” she says then. Feels the rain splatter against the window next to her. Knows that they’re half still _playing_ , and half into territory that seems _much_ too dangerous. But she can’t help it. Doesn’t _want_ to.

“Maybe I should check again,” John’s voice is gravelly and low. And Bonnie nods dully like her head is made of cotton wool.

The second time he kisses her she feels more prepared; John’s mouth moves against her own with a sharp breath through his nose, with the hand on her shoulder drifting to her waist and only _just_ brushing her damp blouse. But then she snakes her own hand up to his neck and his grip settles and he _squeezes_. Bonnie sighs. Finally feels the dark strands of his hair between her fingers.

With an audible _thunk_ John presses her fully to the door then and it’s like she’s a freshly lit match — suddenly she can’t get close enough to him, can’t feel enough skin or taste every corner of his mouth all at once and her body _begs_ for more. Bonnie can’t remember the last time she’d let the floodgates open like this. She’d had her fun as a teenager, messed around with a farmhand or two when her father was off on business. But this — no, this was _different_. John could match her. Serve back everything she hit at him. Use his words to get under her skin in the most satisfying kind of way. Simmer like he’d wanted every conversation to have an ending like _this_.

She’s more than aware of him running his hand down her hip, along her trousers and hoisting up her leg. Doesn’t question what the movement suggests. Only sighs again, deeper, because _there_ he was pressed firmly against his own pants. The sensation kicks Bonnie into a higher gear and suddenly things move _quick_.

Her hands grasp the front of John’s white shirt and she’s pushing him, towards the small bed in the corner, and John pulls away from her mouth with a kind of wild eyed stare. She’s sure he’s going to say something; to suddenly protest, to back away with sharp apologies and regretful eyes. But all Bonnie finds is that same _look._  The one that said, _you want this just as much as me._

She shivers. Presses him to the bed with old wires that creak and groan.

“ _Bonnie_ — “

It’s the first time he’s used her name and she can’t quite believe it’s with hands that pull her flush to him and fingers grasping for her gun belt. She wants to fire something smart back, _anything_ but with the rain beginning to pelt down and the warm glow of the room it’s like she’s in a dream. Floating somewhere above her body.

_Don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it —_

John finds her skin, creeps under her brassier, pushes her vest off, clinks her belt to the wooden floor. His hands are just as rough as she imagined and the texture sets her alight, brings goosebumps to the surface and makes her sigh. Bonnie has every thought to straddle him but John is _fast_ , quick to turn her underneath him and tug at her trousers. There’s boots discarded then and shirts unbuttoned and his chest pressed to hers and the mattress sinking below their weight _and —_

“You been drivin’ me _crazy_ — “ John breathes, nearly groans. “ — and we shouldn’t, but — “

Bonnie grabs for the red tie around his neck. Pulls him down to her so he meets her eyes.

“ _Shut up_.” It’s all she can manage.

And John is kissing her again with hands that unclasp buttons and shuck down his trousers.

She finds his skin free, open to her with dark hair that ripples under her fingers. Bonnie works her way down to the warmth of his union suit, dips below the fabric and then _feels_ him. John grunts above her. Moves his hips shallowly.

He’s hot, hard to her touch and Bonnie can feel how he strains and the sensation pools in her stomach with a tingle. She feels powerful; with a tentative stroke down John sinks his mouth to her neck. _Almost_ leaves a mark. She knows they’re doing something entirely stupid but it’s too _good_ , too much of a satisfying conclusion to weeks of sly behaviour. John’s skin shudders under her and then her shoulders are pushed back. Teeth nip at her bottom lip.

They’re on borrowed time; maybe even time held at ransom. But John seems intent on using every precious second. With a calloused hand he moves over her skin and Bonnie almost moans — he finds her nearly too quickly and it takes everything she has to forget _why_ he’s so practiced at this. She pushes ugly, irritating thoughts into the back of her mind and focuses all her attention on the fingers that trace down and slip inside her. John begins to works her slowly, _agonisingly_ so.

“ _Damn it_ , Bonnie — “ he’s breathless in her ear again. “ — you know what you do to me?”

The words are like a jolt to her system. She tries not to see too much meaning in them. Only gives in, as much as she can, to how John strokes her, coaxes her like a spring being tightly wound in on itself. Bonnie feels him heavy against her thigh. 

“You sayin’ those _things_ to me, like you meant somethin’ else entirely — “

John continues against her and she finds herself silencing him again with a hand laced through his hair.

“Mister Marston, you best stop talkin’,” Bonnie says between a hitch in her throat because he hasn’t stopped his movements, fingers still working her, and it feels damn _good_.

He laughs deep in his chest and the sound vibrates on her.

“It’s _John_ by now, surely — “

With lightning splashing against the wall, and Bonnie’s hands moving to firm themselves around his arms, she bites her tongue. Only arches herself, begs him with her hips until he withdraws his fingers and replaces them with his hot skin.

They move against each other like the first taste of water to a parched throat; John grabs her flesh, pushes himself deep inside like he can’t feel _enough_ , kisses her with more need and _want_ that she’s not even sure she realised the extent of, but it doesn’t matter because Bonnie wraps him as close as she can and holds on _desperately_. With every draw of his hips out she lets herself be driven against the mattress, and she cranes her neck back and _relishes_ in the thunder and the rain that beat against the old roof. John’s breath is a staccato against her ear. He swallows. Paints her cheek with his dark hair. Plants his elbows either side of her. Lets his voice rattle _deep_.

Bonnie winds her hands tighter into his hair.

She tries to commit the feel of his body to memory with her own — because she knows this will be it, something that neither of them will ever speak of again. That he’ll go home back to _Abigail_ , back to his other life on his own ranch and if she does see him at some point, some time in the distant future it’ll be a lost memory shared between weary glances. She doesn’t _want_ to be a lost memory. Or somebody’s _mistake_. But she tells herself, convinces herself that it’s somehow _different_. That they share something. That she means something, _anything_ to him.

With a breathy groan John raises her hips. Bonnie lets her better judgement cloud with the sensation. Lets herself be _stupid_.

“ _John_ — “ she starts and it makes him lift his head with eyes that suddenly look much too young. Bonnie swallows. “ — John, _I_ — “

John presses his forehead to hers. Hesitates like the moment on her porch, before he had told her about his other life. About being _married_. Like he knew exactly what he’d done.

“Don’t,” he says. And then kisses her with a kind of abandon she can’t help but cling to.

Bonnie isn’t sure when she feels the first tingles of that feeling that soars through her, or when she crests and spasms and grips onto him tighter than she’s ever held onto a human being before, but it all happens so _fast_ , and John is leaving her warmth to coat the blanket with an orgasm that wracks through his system _hard_. She catches him squeezing his eyes shut and his chest heaving and his skin pulsing and she files it away. Doesn’t want to forget the sight of his shirt pushed off his chest and his thighs either side of her, muscled from years of horseback.

She feels suddenly, _desperately_ more attracted to him than she should.

John shudders out a long breath. Bows his head with hair that falls into his eyes, untucked from its usual place behind his ears, until he has the forethought to roll off her and seat himself on the edge of the bed.

It’s a moment before Bonnie hears the storm above her again. Somewhere outside John’s horse rears in complaint. She knows she should leave.

That that was _it_.

It’s like she’s moving in slow motion when she redresses herself, with John resting his head to his closed hands and dark hair creating a barrier between them. She does everything to pull herself together quickly; but the moment stretches on far longer than it should. Like she has to calm the aftershocks in her body, deny the pleasure, deny _all_ of it.

John still doesn’t look at her after her belt clinks together and her boots scuff against the wooden floor.

Bonnie reaches for the door.

“I ain’t who you wanted me to be.”

His voice is gruff between his hands and Bonnie stills, stops with eyes that don’t dare to look back at him. Because she doesn’t know how to feel. Only knows how to hide behind words and it’s the best, if not the only choice she’s got.

“I didn’t want you to be anybody, Mister Marston.”

And Bonnie pushes herself into the rain and hopes it soaks through her clothes, through her skin, and washes everything away.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I’ve recently started playing the first game and the entire first quarter is just so poignant; Bonnie really does represent a life that John wants, and although he clearly and very much loves Abigail, Bonnie is the perfect foil for him and matches his personality in every kind of way. I can’t see them ever being together, but with the kind of electric chemistry they have I think something like this could’ve been possible. John knows what he’s done, is definitely the one that’s initiated it all - and being unfaithful is such a complicated and tricky thing, especially when you find someone that ticks all your boxes.


End file.
